The Science of Learning

Article: The Science of Learning

Author: Deans for Impact

Article Reading Time: 20 minutes

Summary

The Science of Learning is a summary document on areas of cognitive science which are directly linked to how students learn. It takes the research and gives practical implications for teachers. It is founded on a core belief that:

"every teacher-candidate should grapple with - and be able to answer - the questions in The Science of Learning. Their answers should be informed and guided by the existing scientific consensus around basic cognitive principles. And all educators, including new teachers, should be able to connect these principles to their practical implications for the classroom."

The article itself is an excellent summary of the cognitive principles and practical implications, so I am not going to further summarize them here. However, the 6 guiding questions, that the Deans for Impact suggest all teachers should be able to answer, are:

1. How Do Students Understand New Ideas?

2. How Do Students Learn and Retain New Information?

3. How Do Students Solve Problems?

4. How Does Learning Transfer To New Situations In Or Outside Of The Classroom?

5. What Motivates Students To Learn?

6. What Are Common Misconceptions About How Students Think And Learn?

Each of these 6 questions are answered with a description of the cognitive principles and then practical implications of these for the classroom. Every one of these is referenced to a further study, giving a total of 44 references for a very short article.

My Takeaways

I created a one side overview of the points made in The Science of Learning.

There are several areas of this that have already been discussed in other blog posts. For example:

• Cognitive Load Theory (http://markhamtl.wixsite.com/teaching-learning/single-post/2017/09/25/Cognitive-Load-Theory-Research-that-teachers-really-need-to-understand)

• Retrieval (http://markhamtl.wixsite.com/teaching-learning/single-post/2017/11/07/Retrieval-Practice)

• Knowledge (http://markhamtl.wixsite.com/teaching-learning/single-post/2018/03/07/How-Knowledge-Helps)

• Motivation (http://markhamtl.wixsite.com/teaching-learning/single-post/2017/10/18/Motivation-in-class)

The importance of prior knowledge is clear through this article, and that students attach new knowledge to ideas they already have is something we make use of every day. I am getting better at identifying what students already know, and I have started using initial assessments before teaching a topic to identify any areas of weakness that might need addressing.

Feedback is an area of teaching where I have had mixed success. I feel like I give good feedback to students "in the moment" and am able to address a lot of issues in class. However, more focus on be clear and precise in written feedback, and also making students have to think about the feedback, are areas I need to develop.

This article has also given me some more things to think about with regards to motivation. A Growth Mindset is important (though we have to be careful not just to say this and actually develop it in everything we do), and so is developing metacognition. Although I have been looking at metacognition, I had not thought about it as a way to improve motivation as well.

Finally, the misconceptions that teachers hold about learning. I hear people discussing these regularly, and I am trying to point people in the direction of the facts with regards to these. As with students, finding misconceptions and addressing them is really important to improve the teaching and learning within the school. On top of the ones mentioned, there is also the Learning Pyramid (https://theeffortfuleducator.com/2017/11/29/the-pyramid-of-myth/) and the fact that learning should be easy (https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/research/#itemII).